The Whitehall, London Rd
Introduction
The photograph on this page of The Whitehall, London Rd by N Chadwick as part of the Geograph project.
The Geograph project started in 2005 with the aim of publishing, organising and preserving representative images for every square kilometre of Great Britain, Ireland and the Isle of Man.
There are currently over 7.5m images from over 14,400 individuals and you can help contribute to the project by visiting https://www.geograph.org.uk
The Whitehall, London Rd
Image: © N Chadwick Taken: 6 Feb 2010
An Art deco shopping parade & cinema built in the 1930s. Now a nightclub & shops. The cinema was the unintended target of a bomb strike in WWII "On 9th July 1943, ten German aircraft crossed the Sussex coast at Hastings and headed for London. At 5.05 pm the air raid sirens sounded in East Grinstead. At the time 184 people were watching a film featuring Hopalong Cassidy in the Whitehall Cinema. A warning appeared on the screen that a German air raid was taking place but few of the audience, mostly children, took any notice of the message. At 5.10 PM one pilot became separated from the other planes and decided that he would find another target before he returned home. A few minutes later he saw a train entering East Grinstead Station. He circled the town twice before dropping his bombs on the High Street. One hit the Whitehall Cinema and others landed on several shops in the High Street and the London Road. As a result of the raid 108 people were killed and 235 were seriously injured. It was the largest loss of life in any air raid in Sussex."
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Image Location
Latitude
51.12549
Longitude
-0.00893